Incentive for Acupuncture

Health Department offers hypnotherapy, acupuncture cash to help staff quit smoking

The federal Health Department is paying for unproven therapies to help its employees quit smoking.

In response to a question on notice from Labor senator Joe Ludwig, the department said it makes hypnotherapy and acupuncture available to its staff to help them quit smoking as part of its Smoke Free Workplace policy.

So far this financial year, two staff members had been reimbursed for hypnotherapy at a total cost of $1000, a department spokeswoman said. There had been no applications or reimbursements for acupuncture.

The aim of using hypnotherapy to help people quit smoking is to put suggestions in the person's unconscious mind to weaken their desire to smoke, or strengthen their will to stop, or to improve their ability to complete a treatment program. Advocates of acupuncture claim applying needles or surgical staples to the skin of the ear or other parts of the body lessens withdrawal symptoms and helps people resist cues to smoke.

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The latest edition of Tobacco in Australia, which was compiled by Cancer Council Victoria and funded by the federal Health Department, lists both acupuncture and hynotherapy as "unproven remedies".

 "The effectiveness of hypnosis has been poorly studied, with studies producing conflicting results," states the manual, which was last updated in 2012.

"To date, there is no clear evidence to support the use of acupuncture or related treatments in their own right as a quitting aid."

Health experts criticised the department's support for the therapies.

"Those two procedures are not what you'd call evidence-based," said Simon Chapman, professor in public health at the University of Sydney.

"It's really just throwing money away, and those procedures are often quite expensive."

Professor Chapman said between two-thirds and three-quarters of all ex-smokers were able to quit without any professional help or medication.

Mike Daube, professor of health policy at Curtin University, commended the Health Department for supporting its staff to give up smoking, but he said the evidence for both techniques was "very thin indeed".

"I don't think government departments should be paying good money for hypnotherapy or acupuncture," he said.

The  department spokeswoman said that in the interests of staff health, since 2010 the department had considered applications for "reasonable reimbursement of a range of activities to help employees quit smoking". These include nicotine replacement products, medications recommended by a doctor and smoking cessation programs and literature.

She said the department regularly reviewed the list of activities that were approved under the policy, and each application was individually assessed on its merits. 

Professor Daube said the department should "stick with what we know to be most effective", such as encouraging staff to quit cold, seek help from their GP or use other approaches which were supported by evidence, such as nicotine replacement therapy.

"I suspect this is probably well-intentioned HR people who may not have sought advice from the very good experts on tobacco policy they have elsewhere in the department."

The revelation comes as the department reviews whether to continue paying the private health insurance rebate on policies that cover natural therapies not supported by evidence. 

According to the Private Health Insurance Administration Council, benefits paid by insurers for natural therapies grew by 345 per cent over the decade to 2012-13, significantly above the growth rate for any other category of general treatment.

Acupuncture and hypnotherapy are not within the scope of the department's review.

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